Art and tech communities together under one roof

Last night Eugene’s art and tech communities came together under one roof at the Hult Center to discuss collaborations. The turnout was great and seemed pretty evenly distributed between tech and art.

Public Art Manager Isaac Marquez gave a presentation with slides of past collaborative art projects, done by both Eugene and out-of-state artists. He discussed the “projection bombs” the city has instigated in the past with projection art around the city.

Marquez also announced that Montreal DJ and artist Kid Koala will be coming to the Hult April 22 with his project Nufonia Must Fall, his graphic novel-turned puppeteer live-action silent film about a robot trying to write a love song. Marquez screened a short promo (see below); it looks like it’s going to be one of the best events to come to the Hult Center in 2016.

The UO School of Music and Dance’s Brad Garner and Shannon Mockli performed choregraphy with projection mapping done by Harmonic Laboratory, a UO-based interdisciplinary artist collective (see photo below). The city of Eugene is looking for artists, techies and more to get involved with its multimedia art fest (sub)Urban Projections, where Kid Koala will perform, in late April. For more info, visit suburbanprojections.com.

More on the techie side of things, local game designer and programmer Ted Brown, a member of Bitforest ( an org for “Eugene Area Game Developers”), spoke to the crowd.

“This is the first time the Hult Center has reached out to the tech community,” Brown said. “I was really excited.”

“This is the first time something like this has happened in Eugene,” he continued.